Wesley Pruden

American journalist legend and Vietnam War author James Wesley Pruden Jr. is Editor Emeritus of The Washington Times. Mr. Pruden’s first job in the newspaper business dates back to 1951 as a copyboy at the now defunct Arkansas Gazette where he later became a sportswriter and an assistant state editor. In 1982, he joined The Washington Times, four months after the paper began, as chief political correspondent. He became assistant managing editor in 1983, managing editor in 1985, and editor-in-chief in 1992. He retired in January 2008 and became editor-in-chief-emeritus. Mr. Pruden is known for his coverage of President Ronald Reagan. In 1991, he won the H.L. Mencken Prize for excellence in writing and commentary. Mr. Pruden writes a twice-weekly column on politics and national affairs for The Times.

Articles by Wesley Pruden

The Syndicate convened the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Illuminati and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy over the weekend at a secret hideaway in downtown Shangri-la to talk about themes for the 2016 campaign.
Published
March 30, 2015

President Obama says Rudy Giuliani was wrong. He does, too, love America. That's good enough for me. He says he's a Christian, despite his constant love bombs for Islam, and if that's good enough for God it's good enough for me, too. Conversations between believers and the Almighty are confidential, and have yet to be cracked by the National Security Agency (but we can be sure they're working on it).
Published
March 26, 2015

Life can be good inside a bubble, where the sun always shines, life is a bowl of cherries and it comes with whipped cream and no calories. You could ask almost anyone in San Francisco, where the only disappointment inside the lavender bubble is among the gay caballeros who don't get to carry the six-foot papier-mache penis to lead the annual Gay Pride Parade.
Published
March 23, 2015

Money is nice but it can be distracting. Captains of industry pile up millions and sometimes imagine that profits makes them prophets, wise and learned in things they don't know anything about.
Published
March 19, 2015

We can add senators to bread, toilet paper and milk on the list of panic items when the snow flies. Fortunately, the snow won't fly again in Washington until next year if we're lucky, but the senators are still here.
Published
March 16, 2015

Conventional wisdom teaches that nothing succeeds like success, but the unwary politician forgets the more important Pruden Rule, which reflects both politics and life: "Nothing recedes like success." Conventional wisdom is made of two parts gossamer and one part each of fog and smoke. The Pruden Rule is cast iron.
Published
March 12, 2015

That ominous noise in the rafters above the heads of Bubba and the missus is the creaking of a roof trying not to collapse. The weight of the years is just about more than the Clinton roof can stand.
Published
March 9, 2015

The Democrats set out to teach John Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu a lesson. They would boycott the Israeli prime minister's speech to Congress and apply enough pressure to cancel the speech, keep Mr. Netanyahu at home and embarrass the Republicans who invited him here. What a happy day's work that would be.
Published
March 2, 2015

The threat of radical Islamic terrorism is so clear and plain that even a president could see it. But Barack Obama is blind, deaf or indifferent, and maybe all three, and determined to keep himself that way.
Published
February 19, 2015

We're well into the new century, moving swiftly through the second decade of the new millennium, at ease in an era of science, modern medicine and wondrous electronics that our grandparents could not have imagined. (Even our parents don't understand most of it.)
Published
February 16, 2015

Barack Obama wants a big box of Magic Markers to deal with the barbarians in the Islamic State. He's in the mood to draw some more red lines. There's actually no magic in the president's markers, but he doesn't know that. Drawing lines in a coloring book is fun — you could ask any 4-year-old — but so far the lines Mr. Obama draws haven't frightened the jihad out of anyone.
Published
February 12, 2015

Facts take a drubbing in Washington, where scrubbing and spinning is the national sport. And not always just in Washington. The late, great Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic senator from New York, observed that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts." He should have lived a little longer.
Published
February 9, 2015

President Obama put on his preaching clothes yesterday and drove up Connecticut Avenue to the Washington Hilton to deliver a sermon to the choir. He took his text from the first chapter of the Book of Moral Equivalence and let the choir have both barrels.
Published
February 5, 2015

Scott Walker is the new flavor of the week, the new dish on the Republican menu. He brought crowds to their feet in Iowa over the weekend and placed first in an important regional poll to identify favorites for 2016.
Published
February 2, 2015

Barack Obama had a high old time in India and Saudi Arabia. The first lady, not so much. The trip was down hill after New Delhi. A good time in Saudi Arabia was not had by all.
Published
January 29, 2015

Everybody's for free speech — until somebody says something he doesn't like. But the genius of the First Amendment is that it is so direct and plain that even a lawyer or a judge can understand it.
Published
January 26, 2015

President Obama has a happy and untroubled life on Fantasy Island, where he lives in splendid isolation from the world where the rest of us live. He is never troubled by terrorists, whether Islamic, Jewish or Episcopalian. All rough places have been made plain, manna falls right on time every morning, the water is pure, clear and cold, and golf courses where everybody breaks par stretch to a happy oblivion. The ants never get into his pants.
Published
January 22, 2015